GBTA: Access to Risk Management Services Still Far From Universal

The vast majority of business travelers feel their companies take duty of care seriously, yet access to risk management services is far from universal, according to new research released from the GBTA Foundation, the education and research sect of the Global Business Travel Association.

The study, “Travel Booking Behavior Impacts on Safety,” conducted in partnership with Concur, also revealed that around one half of business travelers agree that not booking through company channels can impact their safety by making it more difficult for their company to locate or contact them in an emergency. However, more than three in five travelers have booked outside of their company channels at least once in the past year.

Additionally, fewer than two in five travelers say their organization has a system in place to capture their travel plans when they book directly with a supplier and many business travelers say that the only way for their organization to know where they traveled is through expense reports.

The research comes from an online survey conducted by the GBTA Foundation from September 26 through October 3, 2017, taking answers from 735 business travelers in Germany (245), the United Kingdom (247), and France (243).

Additional Findings

A small majority (52-62 percent) of business travelers say their company provides travel advisories/notifications while a similar share (45-54 percent) say it provides travel health advisories.

Travelers expect their companies to use a range of information to quickly locate them during an emergency or security event including travel itineraries (53 percent), GPS information from employer-provided smartphone apps (44 percent) and expense report information (32 percent).

More than a third of travelers believe they would have benefitted from customized safety training or resources, based on personal characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation or religion in the past year.

At least two-thirds of travelers in each country would expect their company to proactively contact them within two hours of an emergency

Almost half of business travelers say they would have benefitted from training tailored to their destination.

For more information on this study, the report is available exclusively to GBTA members here and non-members may purchase the report through the GBTA Foundation by emailing [email protected].